The web-based demo for Pixel Maverick's upcoming exploration-platformer Candlelight is a good way to spend a few minutes.

In Candlelight, the world has been plunged into darkness by a mysterious disaster, and only one candle remains to cast light into the dark. Your task is to journey across the land, lighting torches and passing your flame to others as you go.

It does have the unmistakable ring of "artsy fartsy indie," but the demo that went up a few days ago is actually quite good. It's just a single, small level, but it shows off the game's major features, including various obstacles like water, wind and lava, burnable surfaces, exploding barrels of TNT and more. Each level also contains a treasure chest that can be unlocked by lighting torches; inside the chests are maps, which, when assembled, unlock a new level.

Alas, as a candle, your life is naturally limited. Water extinguishes you, lava melts you and your own flame slowly but steadily wears down you life as well. If you can't make it to the end of the level, or at least to a checkpoint, before you burn out, you're set back to the previous checkpoint and have to start again.

I'm generally not a fan of platformers, but this is a cool little twist on the genre and good enough to be worth a look, especially since the demo is free and will only eat up a few minutes of your life. It's also, in my ever-so-humble opinion, a lot better than the gameplay video Pixel Maverick put out in January. The studio says it's aiming to have Candlelight out this summer, and in the meantime you can find out more and take the demo for a spin at pixelmaverickgames.com.